


A Requiem

by Zafaria



Category: Wizard101
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 08:19:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18890758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zafaria/pseuds/Zafaria





	A Requiem

I remember when Libby became the Chosen One. She was a clear-cut diviner with her sharp jaw, pointed nose, and crystalline smile.  
  
I tagged along with her everywhere, I was younger then and didn't know anything of peril and danger. We skipped around the Commons, and the pyramids, and the grey-brick streets and some of the gardens, and I would giggle and hum Heir of All the Waiting Ages. Libby was not the first Chosen One, not even in the past ten years. But we brushed it aside and smiled the whole way because we would be the ones to make it. Libby was Chosen, and she would make good on her privilege. We said this a lot, over the bubble peach teas in the vibrant city, and over the hot and bitter coffees in the Royal Museum. We had said it, in a much more morose tone, while standing before the hole in the side of the mountain, looking at the dragon's closed eyelid.  
  
I almost trip on the uneven grey bricks of that street from memory. I cannot fathom how I managed to keep my toes from wedging in the gaps between the bricks when I was younger and springing off the ground every few steps.  
  
And then I look up at the large and daunting belltower. I am reminded of all the times we looked up the sheer face of a cliff. We had done it once in Dragonspyre, toward the bubbling top of a volcano with the power to destroy the universe. And we had done so again, high up on a sky-island, staring down a comet and the death of a world.  
  
I really regret that one.   
  
I really regret that that had been our last match on the scorecard, and it was a loss. It was the only loss. Libby and I had wanted to right it so badly. I suppose that is where the next Chosen One will pick up. Just like we picked up from Clyde at the demons in Mooshu, and just like he had picked up from Sophie around Nightside.   
  
Sophie, I had heard, became lost and perhaps delusional. She roamed the halls of the Castle Darkmoor wailing before her time expired. We think she was laid down in the Graveyard outside, where it was all green and blue from the thornbushes and the moon, and the wind nudged the leafless trees.   
  
I know a bit more about Clyde, for I actually did go to his requiem. His was a quiet bit, outside and in between large boulders. We were still on the gentle grains of sand, and the few of us that spilled over on the the lush green grass, we made sure to tread cautiously. There are only a few lasting snippets from that day. Mostly, they are of all the pale flower petals thrown over the sturdy and solemn box. Libby cried before taking the box over her shoulders with the others. They bore it all the way across the bridge and into the Village of Sorrow, where Clyde rests today.   
  
I put my head down between my shoulders and stare at my feet, like Libby had that day. I walk through those grand arches fashioned out of the same grey stone, flanked by the tall columns. Underneath the stained-glass and in the center of the rows of pews, the door is covered by a red sheet. We make our way to the back of the room, where the altar is. On each of the bevels in the woodwork, there are clusters of candles, flames swaying side to side. The rest of the room is empty, and people are still milling around outside. Their shadows are cut into multicolored pieces by the panels of the stained glass windows.  
  
 _Yes_  I admit to myself as my eyes well, _I am crying, yes._  And I am. It is not the red hot crying of frustration, though. My face is still cold, just like the room encased in stone. The spots under my eyes are not flushed, they are dark, like the corners of the chapel in the night when the light isn't filtering through those colorful windows. I am pale, and maybe even a little grey. I've found myself up at night with wide eyes, listening to the rattle of the owls. I have found that it is more comfortable to sit at my desk and work through the meals. My few other friends don't ask.   
  
No one was as fast friends with me as we had been, though. There are no other people I was to ask to drink peach tea with me and sit by the river in Cyclops Lane. There is no one else who I want to shuffle out of the dorms with at midnight, dragging our feet to the Fairegrounds so we can ride on the carousel without anyone else shooting us judging glances. I'm not sure I understand why they all think the carousel is for the youngest of the students only.  
  
And there really isn't anyone I want to sit with on the dorm floor, with their head in my lap and their long hair sprawled all over  as they read a book or roll their eyes and talk about boring things in the great journey we are taking.   
  
I touch the box gingerly and run my hand with the grain of the wood as I think of how we used to sit, with her long brown hair pouring all over the green of my robes. I think of her counting on her spindly fingers, waving them around as she tells story after story.   
  
Many of the flowers around in vases are burgundy, like the rug we had sat on in my room, or they are a kindly purple, like Libby's eyes.  
  
I inhale and swallow the muck that had stirred with my crying. I wipe my black sleeve on my pale face. People begin to file in some of the further rows, and I scoot into the second row from the front, all the way down to the right. The aisle next to me is quiet and I don't see any feet passing by as I turn my head to the side and stare downwards. People are using the central isle, where they confront the presence of that solemn box, just like we had with Clyde. The priest walks in behind. I take a minute to find him in the crowd. He wears all black, too, save for the small cube of white on his collar. It looks like it is restraining him as he tries to clear his throat. I see his neck keep brushing against it over and over as he speaks.  
  
And then the chapel fills with howls and drained voices. We are left to contemplate a deep red casket and its gold inlays.  
  
I remember, we would sit and chatter in the Commons by one of the old trees, and we would talk about Choseness. They would say the transmission was, well, obvious; People of great knowledge and power surround themselves with other people of great knowledge and power. The next Chosen One would crop out from around the mass surrounding the former's casket. Choseness was a "privilege" handed between the soft and warm palms of good friends, like a baton in a race, like someone's favorite book loaned in earnest to a friend.  
  
The next person chosen, though, will see insurmountable obstacles. The kinds we only dream of in night terrors or read in the grotesque tomes about the work of the first necromancers. There is the Arachna out there in the night somewhere, goliaths with large piercing mandibles and weavers with poisonous bite. Most nights, I worry and look over my shoulder as I run down the streets. I worry that the murky shadows are creeping up behind me. I worry that the inky darkness is filled with eager eyes, as many as there are stars against a black sky, and that they are watching me from all the corners of the world.  
  
Now, I sing the 23rd Pslam and hope that I am not chosen next.


End file.
